Hey there horror fans, I’m Jessica Avery and I’ll be delivering your weekly brief of all that’s ghastly and grim in the world of Horror. Whether you’re looking for a backlist book that will give you the willies, a terrifying new release, or the latest in horror community news, you’ll find it here in The Fright Stuff.
Welcome to another week of all things ghoulish and gruesome! And oh wow do I have something amazing to share with you this week. Titan Books has been in my inbox again, enticing me with eerily beautiful covers and the promise of nightmarish books to come. Which is to say, we have been graced once more with another gorgeous cover reveal for one of Eric LaRocca’s books. And, rolling out this awesome new format for newsletters.
Are you ready?
Riot Recommendations
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I know I’m biased, because Eric LaRocca is one of my insta-buy, must-have authors and I’m always excited about his forthcoming works. But I mean, come on! How gorgeous is that cover? The watercolor softness of it, the vividness of the red juxtaposed with the shadowy figure amidst the trees. I just want to rub my face on it like a happy possum. (It’s called slubbing, and it’s adorable. When possums do it. It’s mostly just weird if I do it.)
The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is a collection of LaRocca’s short fiction, originally published under the title The Strange Thing We Become and Other Dark Tales, now reissued in glorious form by Titan Books, and set to be published March of 2023. The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is comprised of eight stories of dark fiction, examining the darker side of love. Tales of obsession, tales of grief, tales of trauma, obsession, and tragedy, all expressed through the beautiful, magnetic pose that LaRocca’s readers have come to associate with his work.
I haven’t had the chance to read the original The Strange Thing We Become yet, so I couldn’t be more excited to have a chance to ordered this newly republished and retitled edition.
LaRocca’s body of work is distinctive, fascinating, and constantly growing! Just this year we’ve been blessed with the creepy, reality bending You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood, and the gross and gruesome dark fairy tale that is We Can Never Leave This Place. With his 2021 novella Things Have Gotten Worse Since Last We Spoke set to be republished by Titan Books this September, LaRocca’s forthcoming They Were Here Before Us coming out form Bad Hand Books in October, and now The Trees Grew Because I Bled There set for a spring 2023 release, if you’ve been looking for a reason to pick up one of LaRocca’s novellas here’s your moment!
Even fall seems so far away right now, however. (I am not a summer person) So I thought I’d wrap up this week’s newsletter by trying to entice you to buy even more horror collections and anthologies while we wait:
All the Fabulous Beasts by Priya Sharma
“Yes, Jessica,” you might be thinking, “We know that you love All the Fabulous Beasts, you don’t have to keep telling us.” But listen: in my defense, many if not all of the stories in Sharma’s collection are about love, grief, sexuality, nature, or all four together. Which makes it the perfect book to read while you wait for The Trees Grew Because I Bled There. They’re thematically compatible! And as much as I love all horror, I particularly love horror that deals with, well, love! Both the beautiful, the horrific, and the beautifully horrific things that love can do to us and those we choose to take it from and share it with.
Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology ed. By Celine Frohn
LaRocca’s horror has always been unapologetically, blatantly queer, and the Gothic pervades much of his work, whether in his settings, his themes, or both. So it seems only fitting to include Unspeakable, given that it is also both delightfully queer and Gothic. This anthology from Nyx Publishing features everything from uncanny sea creatures to the quintessential Gothic haunted house in 18 tales of the grim and horrible. And now is a great time to pick up a copy, because the sequel anthology, Unthinkable, is currently only less than $2000 away from meeting its fundraising goal on Kickstarter! In fact, one of the donation tiers includes paperbacks of both Unthinkable, and the republished edition of Unspeakable with a new introduction by editor Celine Frohn.
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap
If it’s the surreal quality of Eric LaRocca’s books that appeals to you, I absolutely have to recommend Isabel Yap’s 2021 collection, Never Have I Ever. Her work has a similarly surreal feel to it, and her stories span the whole range of speculative genres, from sci-fi to horror to fantasy and back again as Yap blends urban legends with Philippine folklore into stories you won’t soon forget. I mean it. Never Have I Ever is a one of a kind collection of strange and beautiful (and frequently queer!) stories that will challenge and expand your notions of dark fiction.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Fresh From the Skeleton’s Mouth
Any horror fan could tell you that horror isn’t a one season genre. We love our scares all year round! So if your summer reading list is looking a little bare, be sure to check out this Book Riot list of summer scares that will chill you to the bone!
Ahead of the publication of her newest novella, What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher joined the hosts of the Talking Scared Podcast to chat about her new book, parasitical fungi, polyamory and Poe!
I’m a week late in sharing this news, so mea culpa, but the winners of the 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards have been announced!
As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.